Liquid laundry detergents are popular with the consumers. While a variety of surfactants is available to manufacturers to formulate these, it is desirable to include alkoxylated ester surfactants, due to its better biodegradability in comparison to alcohol-based alkoxylates. In addition, alkoxylated ester surfactants are derived from a renewable source—oil and fat. Unfortunately, alkoxylated ester surfactants hydrolyse in the presence of water, and especially under alkaline conditions. The hydrolysis has a dual disadvantage of destroying the surfactant and introducing fatty acid, one of the degradation products, which is, essentially, oily soil. The hydrolysis of acid esters occurs in an aqueous, high pH environment, and so may occur in the bottled compositions on storage (most laundry compositions are aqueous and have pH of 6-10).
The following art describes compositions, in some instances laundry compositions, that may include various, broadly ranging carboxylic acid esters and/or alkoxylated derivatives thereof: Koester et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,384,009), Hees et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,753,606), WO 01/10391, WO 96/23049, WO 94/13618, Miyajima et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,417,146), JP 9078092, JP 9104895, JP 8157897, JP 8209193 and JP 3410880.
Laundry compositions containing free radical scavengers are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,448,214.